Waiting on the Rain by Claudia Connor

7

Luke drove a second replacement post into the ground and secured a cross board to either end. He’d taken some time off from working on the first of the campers’ cabins this morning to replace a few rotted sections of fence. There were four turn–out paddocks, each one about half the size of a football field and each one had at least a couple posts that needed attention.

He’d been up before the sun had burned away the dewy mist of dawn when the world was blanketed in a soft gray. The trees in the distance blurred around the edges. Now the landscape was a pallet of greens instead of grays. The heavy stillness of fog replaced by a gentle breeze that had every new blade of grass swaying with life.

He tried not to think it was the perfect place for the enemy to hide. Tried not to slide his hand over his hip and be reminded that he didn’t have a gun if death rose up out of the field and started shooting at him.

He didn’t close his eyes. Couldn’t force himself to do that, but he did concentrate on breathing normally, slowing his heart rate. Not a war zone. Not a war zone. Not a war zone.

He scanned the expanse of raw land. Horses made soft noises or stood stock still, heads down. No sign they sensed danger. He inhaled the scent of damp grass and fresh manure. Sometimes, even here, he swore he smelled diesel exhaust, burnt rubber, and smoke.

The sky overhead was clear, clear and blue and he couldn’t look at it without thinking of Ava’s eyes. The sun was warm now and he’d traded his sweatshirt of earlier for short sleeves. After two more screws at the bottom, he gave the post a good shove, assuring himself it was solid.

He stretched his neck and looked down the fence line. He’d walked almost the entire way from the cabin to the barn. Might as well see if his sister needed help with anything else while he was here. Keeping busy was the best coping strategy. Assuming he needed a strategy to cope.

He entered the barn through the open back doors, passing stalls on his way to the office. He’d passed three empty stalls before he heard his sister telling someone what a handsome boy they were.

He stood just outside the stall, watching her stroke the big gelding.

“And such a good boy, too. Yes, you are.”

“You talking to me?”

Hannah turned at the sound, then grinned over her shoulder. “Well, you’re moderately handsome, though you don’t hold a candle to Newman.”

“Mmm. Careful he doesn’t step on you.”

Hannah rolled her eyes before turning back to the horse. “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing. I was just working on some fence posts I noticed were loose. Thought I’d see if you needed anything else.”

“If you’re going for best brother award, you’re in the lead.” Hannah grabbed the pitchfork leaning outside the stall and scooped up a fork full of manure laden straw.

“Here. Give me that.” Luke stepped up to take the pitch fork from her. She didn’t let it go.

“I can do it.”

“I know you can.”

“Then let go.”

“Fine,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. He still saw her as two with hair sticking up all over her head in golden tufts. His brothers had been tight once, even if the years and miles he’d put between them had killed that. But his baby sister, he’d missed her entire life. Funny how regret could grow once it started.

At fifteen, he’d been in awe of this tiny little thing his mom had brought home. A lone girl in a house of teenage boys. He remembered how his mom had fussed over every detail for months. How he’d moved into Nick’s room so his mom could make the pink and white nursery of her dreams.

A surly teen to his core, it’d been hard to keep up his angry shell when Hannah gave him her toothy slobbery grin or patted his cheeks with sticky fingers. She wouldn’t remember any of that. Given what had happened the night he’d left, he should be grateful she was too young to remember.

Unless Nick had told her.

“You know you always had your fingers in your mouth.”

Hannah gave him a curious look, wrinkled up her nose. “Well good thing I broke that habit.”

“So you say.”

Hannah rolled her eyes again and Newman dipped his head over the half door. Luke ran his hand over the silky neck of Hannah’s newest Gelding. “How’s he settling in?”

“Good, I think. He’s a good boy, aren’t you.” The old horse, dipped his head. “He’ll be good for the kids to ride. He’s strong. We’ll just need to get to know him, let him get to know the area. I’ve neglected Winnie lately. I think she’s getting jealous. You know, if you have time, maybe we could go ride together.”

“Okay.”

“I’m also looking into getting a donkey.”

“You’re going to put a kid on a donkey?”

“No, dork. Not for riding. Someone who runs an animal rescue called and asked if I had any room here. So I’m thinking maybe. I’ll just make sure he’s as sweet as they say he is. Anyway, I’m thinking of moving Newman into that front turn–out. I think Pete would make a good friend for him.”

“Horses need friends?”

Hannah shot him a too kind look over her shoulder. “Everyone needs friends, Luke.”

She looked at him just a beat too long, probably wanted to ask if he’d been sleeping again to which he would lie and say yes. But thankfully, she didn’t ask and turned back to the horse. He rarely came over to the barn during the day, preferring to work alone on the cabin. But he did try to check in when he knew Hannah was going through morning chores before her first riders of the day arrived.

“Before I do that, I need to make sure that back right corner is secure. I’ve let it go because Banjo’s not going anywhere, but I don’t fully trust Newman.”

“Already done.”

She stopped, stared at him. “Seriously? Luke, you’re already doing too much.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, looking away.

She closed and latched the bottom half of the stall door, then leaned the pitchfork against the wall and rose up to kiss his cheek. “Then you’re a good boy, too.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Luke took the wheelbarrow from her and rolled it out, dumped the pile.

He wasn’t used to it, his sister’s affection. Often wondered how she was able to give it so freely to a brother she barely knew. Maybe there was some kind of subconscious memory from her two-year-old self. However self-absorbed he’d been, he’d loved her ridiculously, even if he hadn’t known how to show it.

When he came back into the barn she was pouring grain into Newman’s feed bucket.

“I started on the bunk beds last night. I went by your measurements, but you might want to take a look, make sure it’s what you had in mind.”

“That’s awesome. And it makes it seem really real.” She moved on to the next stall. “I still wish you’d stay with us. There’s no need for you to rough it.”

“And risk seeing Stephen’s bare ass? No, thanks. I’m good, really. I like it, it’s quiet. And it’s hardly roughing it.”

Hannah had offered the couch in the small house she shared with Stephen and their one–and–a–half–year–old a hundred times. No way did they need someone sleeping on their couch. He’d spent a week on Zach’s before his brother’s lease ran out and he moved in with Nora and Will.

Luke considered it a stroke of luck that his sister needed help building cabins for her camp. So he’d thrown his sleeping bag down on the foundation and spent his days, and nights, building walls.

Hannah was still looking at him. Trying to read him? Wondering if there was a reason he’d rather be alone in the quiet? He forced a smile and that seemed to satisfy her. “Insulation’s in. Most of the interior walls are finished.”

Along with his brothers, Stephen, and a couple more McKinneys, they’d gotten the thirty by forty–five foot space framed and dried-in in a weekend. With Matt’s direction—and some help from YouTube, Luke had managed the plumbing. Matt McKinney had sent over one of his guys for the electrical.

“You don’t even have a kitchen table.”

Hannah said it like it was the worst thing in the world. He wouldn’t point out all the places he’d eaten. “I will soon. I’m working on one with some of the scrap pieces.”

“I don’t know where you’re finding the time to do all this, but I’d like to see it. And I still need to pay you for the lumber and nails and… whatever else.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Luke. You’re not doing the work and paying for the materials too.”

Despite a few nonprofit grants, he knew she and Stephen were putting most everything they had into this place. “I may have lost the receipts.”

“Luke! I need those receipts for taxes.”

She turned to him again and he caught mild annoyance in her eyes, not pity. Progress.

“Sorry. I’ll remember next time.” Like hell he would. He had money from twenty years of service. Except for a truck and a cheap apartment, he hadn’t had any reason to spend it. Other than helping out Hannah and Freedom Farm, he didn’t have a reason now. “Where’s Stephen?”

“He’s dropping Mitchell and Will off at his mom’s for a few hours.”

“The honeymooners are back tomorrow?”

“Yes.” She paused on her way to the office and gave Winnie a scratch between the ears. “I think Mitchell is going to miss having Will around. It’s making us think about trying for a second.”

“Trying what for a second what? Oh. Um.” He straightened. Was she actually looking at him like she wanted his opinion? “Well, I don’t know about that.”

“You mean you don’t want to know about it.”

“Yes. I do. Not want to know, I mean.”

She laughed as his face went hot. He took a step back. “Do you want help with turn-out, or not?”

“Yes, but first I could use some help with my To-Do list. Honestly, it’s starting to make me crazy.”

He followed her to the barn office, stopping in the doorway. She sat down at her desk piled with miscellaneous papers and pulled out the notebook he knew was her camp to-do list bible.

“I’m waiting on call backs from two suppliers, hoping for donations,” she said, making a note in her book. “Stephen’s brother Matt has offered to help and I’ve got you, but… am I crazy? To think I could do this? I mean what am I thinking? I need strobe lights in the cabins for the hearing impaired and braille everything for the blind. I want to get as far along as I can before Ava leaves so she can go over everything and tell me what I’ve missed. She’s going to help me get the nameplates ordered for outside the stalls.

“Every path needs lighting and braille markers. I’m scratching the dining hall for now—each cabin will eat breakfast and dinner separately. We’ll do picnic style for lunches.”

Luke shrugged, pretending not to notice the mention of Ava. “It’s camp. Kids are supposed to rough it.” He snagged a cracker from the open package on his sister’s desk. He rarely saw his sister eat a real meal.

“I know, but a lot of these kids require extra consideration. They have medicines that have to be refrigerated and dietary restrictions and—” She pulled at her hair. “I am crazy. I truly am. To think I could have all of this done by June. Certifiable.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy. You can add cabins as you go.” He shrugged. “Consider this first summer a trial run.” She’d already had a summer day camp, now she was looking to expand to overnight. It made sense and it would open it up to a lot more kids who didn’t live close enough to be driven back and forth every day.

“Well, I was definitely crazy to think I could have had this up and running by last fall.”

“I agree, that was a long shot.”

She sighed. “Yeah. But that’s good about the bunks. Thanks, really. It’s a huge help and I can’t wait to see them.”

“No, problem. It’s working out on my end, too.” Because he wasn’t ready to make the leap of signing a lease or buying a house. Plus, the thought of having nothing to do during the long nights made him edgy.

“I’m lucky you’re here,” Hannah said. “And I’m glad you’re here. Even if you weren’t helping I’d be glad. So glad.”

He almost said, me, too, but he didn’t want to lie. He wanted to be glad. He wanted to feel like this was right, that it was where he was supposed to be, but the truth was, he just didn’t know. He couldn’t tell his baby sister that nothing felt right and at least twenty times a day he was sure he’d made a mistake leaving the military.

“Yeah, well. I don’t have anything else to do, so…” He shrugged, shifted, angling for the door and escape. The long look Hannah gave him made his insides squirm. Guess saying you didn’t have anything to do struck another worry chord in his sister’s heart. And wouldn’t it? Most grown ass men had direction. Purpose. Most forty-year-old men didn’t walk away from the only career they’d ever known with absolutely no plan. Shit.

But his sister was staring at him, waiting on some kind of answer or reassurance. “Just kidding,” he said, and raised his hand, thinking to ruffle her hair but ended up giving her an awkward pat on the shoulder. She was twenty–seven, not two. “I’ll get going on the bunks.” He purposefully left off that he had an appointment later. If he told her she’d ask what it was and he didn’t want to say.

“Okay. Hey.”

He stopped at the door, half afraid she somehow knew.

“Ava’s coming out to ride later.”

His pulse might have jumped a little at that news but he was confident he didn’t let it show. “Okay.”

“Just thought you might want to come say hi. You two seemed to hit it off at the wedding. She doesn’t know many people here,” Hannah added when he just stood there. “I think she’s getting a little stir crazy with her parents.”

He blinked. “Okay.”

“Jeez,” Hannah said. “Go. Get out before you talk my ear off. You can take Big Al out with you.”

He made his escape, clipping a halter and lead rope to Big Al, a small Shetland pony. He walked Al out to his paddock to join Hazel for some spring grass and sunshine. He hadn’t thought much about horses before coming here, but he liked them well enough. They watched, considered, taking in their surroundings, their jaws moving in slow circles as they chowed contentedly on grass.

“Okay, big guy, go do what horses do.” Al stood still in front of him, his head lowered for a scratch between the ears. “Okay, fine. But you do know you’re not a dog, right?”

Al bobbed his head as if answering which was kind of creepy. He kept rubbing the course strands of the pony’s forelock, and squinted up at the sky. What would he do if he saw Ava again? Since he was on his way to a psych appointment, or transition counselor, as the military liked to call it, it was probably best for both of them if he did nothing.

“Okay, Al. That’s all you get. Some of us have work to do.” Again, as if Al understood him, the pony turned and ambled off, lowering his head to the grass.

Luke left the paddock, secured the latch behind him, thinking of Ava. Ava with the blue eyes, soft skin and a smile that killed him.